In todays edition, we will cover why knowledge of what you sell is vital if you want to really impress those you engage with. And what should you do if you lack knowledge?
It taught me so much
I want to share a story that shaped my approach to sales. At the time, that lesson made me feel one foot tall, but looking back now, it taught me so much.
Around 6 months into my first job after I left university, I was asked to go and present to a group of people who worked for Nokia in Helsinki. I had recently joined a computer networking company called 3Com after university, and I had started working in the product sales team selling SuperStack switches. Our team was responsible for communicating the product’s value and supporting the sales team and partners who implemented these products worldwide.
I was lucky in this role that I got to travel the world, and the 7 years I spent with 3Com taught me so much. But I had to start somewhere.
After getting familiar with the products and learning more about the industry and technology, the team believed I was ready to ‘go out into the field’.
It was my first trip abroad and we were about to launch 2 products, the SuperStack 1100 and 3300. Our team was asked to visit customers and our offices across Europe, and my manager Nick asked me to represent the business in Scandinavia. I was asked to travel to Finland first before heading down to Norway and Sweden to share details of the exciting new products we were launching.
The first presentation was seen as an easy starting point. I was asked by the Country Manager of Finland to give a 1-hour presentation to around 20 technical people who worked at Nokia. They were big users of the earlier version of the product, and the sales team were keen to get them to upgrade, as they were a big customer of 3Com at the time.
To give you some perspective, I had completed a computer systems degree but, being honest, technical systems and products were not my strong point. I was confident, had rehearsed my presentation and learned as much as I could about 10/100 switches, but I was better at the talking part than the technical bit.The day of the presentation came along and I ensured I looked smart. I met Teemu, the Country Manager for Finland, outside my hotel and he drove me to the Nokia office.
Nokia aren’t well known now but back in 1997 they were a BIG deal.
Most of the early mobile phones made were Nokias, and I still love my old Nokia 3310. Ask anyone over 50, these phones were used by everyone!!
Introductions were made and I looked out at the audience of 30-plus (others had joined as they had come to listen to the expert ☹) engineers and started talking.
It is safe to say that the 60-minute presentation/meeting was one of the longest hours of my life.
I shared what I knew and what I had learned, but what I knew was superficial and basic compared to what 12 network engineers knew about switches. It became clear quite early on that I was a beginner and most of these guys were advanced!
I barely knew what the 7-layer model meant (look it up if you haven’t heard about it, but it’s a bit techie), but they knew all 7 layers and knew more about my product than I did.
Whilst I was able to talk about features at a very top level, they wanted the guts.
Why did you build the feature in that way?
Why does it only support 7 VLANs?
Does it support 802.1 P and Q?
It became clear after a short while that I was out of my depth.
I used my lack of knowledge to go deeper into features which I didn’t know that much about, and that itself made me look even more like an idiot. I read out lines from a product manual whilst these guys were doing the practical implementation daily, which I hadn’t done.
I must have looked at the clock some 30 times during that 1-hour period and every time I looked over at the Country Manager for Finland, I could read his thoughts of, ‘Why have they sent this junior idiot over to me?’
What made it worse was that I didn’t, at this stage, know the best way of handling questions you don’t know the answer to.
Nowadays, when I get asked this, I will respond with, ‘That’s a great question, tell me more about your thoughts here’ or ‘Interesting, what made you ask this?’
Or, if needed, reply with, ‘This is an area I am not totally sure on. I could give you an answer, but I want to ensure it’s correct, so let me come back to you on this.’
This can work with 1 or 2 questions, but if you are continually saying it then there is a problem.
I could have (and maybe should have!) fessed up and said we needed to bring an engineer in to speak with them, but I thought I was the ‘Daddy’ travelling overseas as a 22-year-old and I was schooled. It was a valuable lesson I have learned from ever since.
To make matters worse, the Head of IT at the end of the presentation came out, looked sorry for me and said with a sigh, ‘Sorry about my guys in there, they just thought you knew lots about the devices. Not to worry.’
He felt sorry for me, I could tell, but the Country Manager didn’t. He felt I had cost him a deal and it’s not a surprise that I wasn’t asked to come back!
The moral of the story for me?
Build knowledge of your subject area before you present OR become an expert at asking the right questions to dig deeper into what made the person ask the question in the first place!
But ideally, become an expert in your field. Know what the challenges are in your market. Know what interests people and takes up their time and attention.
Nokia stayed as a customer because 3Com was a big enough company to cope with my average performance that day, but you may not get a second chance in your business.
Get a PhD in your customers’ world and problems. Know more about their space than they do and, if you do, it can allow you to open up strong conversations which build trust, respect and very often lead to new business.
Go in blind and knowing very little and you will look like I did 28 years ago — a novice.
Does this cover a challenging sales or business situation you have had?
If not, then what sales question or area would you like me to cover in a future newsletter?
Let me know. I read all replies even if I don’t have time to reply to them all.
Thanks, as ever, for being part of my community.
Have a brilliant sales week ahead and remember: Eat or be Eaten.
